Instead, on Monday, Jeffrey Lynn Gentry, 40, was sentenced to 36 months behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release in a federal money laundering and wire fraud case.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger also ordered Gentry to pay $10,410,672 in restitution to victims, which included his own family, friends and local acquaintances who had pulled from their retirement and savings accounts at the promise of a 6 to 10 percent return on their investment.

Gentry told investors the money was being used to buy farming equipment to fulfill state government contracts that did not actually exist, convincing more than 50 people to invest roughly $43 million and causing a loss of more than $10 million to the victims.

“Many of these investors suffered life-altering financial loss from which they will never likely recover," said Jack Smith, then acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, after Gentry pleaded guilty in August.

Along with the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Attorney's Office asset forfeiture unit seized Gentry's business, vehicles, farm equipment, houses, livestock, land and $300,000 in cash, liquidating the assets during an Aug. 26 auction in Sparta that generated $1.3 million for the victims.

How authorities caught on to Jeff Gentry's Ponzi scheme

As investors began to grow concerned about what was to come of their money, the first tip came in to the Sparta Police Department, which reached out to federal authorities for assistance.

Gentry, the owner of Gentry Brothers Tractor Supply, began the fraudulent investment program in 2012, an endeavor Smith described in August as a “Ponzi scheme.”

In the tight-knit community around Sparta, word traveled fast about the offer to help Gentry front money for equipment to satisfy purported contracts with multiple states, including Tennessee, in exchange for more money afterward.

“What makes this crime particularly troubling is that it was perpetuated because of the trust that these folks had in Mr. Gentry, because he was a longtime member of the community and they felt they could trust their life savings with someone like that,” Smith said.

Prosecutors said that Gentry admitted he never intended to invest the money as promised, but instead used it to subsidize his own lifestyle and buy real estate and vehicles.

In March 2016, he used investor money to open Gentry Auto, his own used car lot, transferring more than $365,000 of the investor funds last year from the tractor supply business to his used car business.

As part of the conditions of Gentry’s plea agreement, his wife, Wendy Gentry, won’t be charged in the case. No others were charged.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.